We’re pretty sure you’ve heard of the Employer Value Proposition by now. Now, let’s explain why it’s so great & helpful, especially if you’re evaluating it. Don’t have an EVP in place? No worries, this is a great place to start building it. Yes, even from scratch.

What is EVP?

You might already know what it means, but let’s explain it one more time for the newbies. EVP is short for Employer (or Employee) Value Proposition. Let’s take a look at the definition of the famous Simon Barrow – you SHOULD know about him, he’s the KING of Employer Branding. He says:

“The term EVP is being used to define the underlying ‘offer’ on which an organization’s employer brand marketing and management activities are based. In this context, the EVP is often referred to as the Employer Brand Proposition.”

Good stuff right? We think so too. But, how to apply this proposition to the real world? Let’s continue in the next step: Where is your company currently at?

1. What’s Your EB Status?

Sure, you’ll be needing an EVP at some point, but don’t jump in like a headless chicken! First, measure your status quo. If you’re not tracking your company’s social media, website, Glassdoor score & Google ratings, it’s an excellent place to start. You should be engaging & communicating with your audience for sure, but how do you measure it all? If you want to save time, but still measure the effect of all existing platforms? There is the Employer Brand Index. What’s that? Read on, dear friend, for we have just the thing for you.

2. Employer Brand Index?

It sounds a bit generic, but trust me; it’s not. In fact, it’s very clever. Based on a robust methodology, it includes 16 Employer Brand Attributes. These specific attributes are based on copious amounts of research and data collection. Everything that encompasses your employer brand can be attributed to at least one of the 16 attributes. Having these attributes allows you to understand the exact areas you’re doing well on or the areas that need improvement.

Check them out, you could recognize a couple of them, as they are mentioned a lot in employer brand context.

3. Attributes + Your Company = EVP

Let’s say that you’ve done an Employer Brand Index, and Mission & Purpose is the best-scored attribute. This is an obvious sign that you should highlight that in your Employer Value Proposition. To construct a realistic EVP, you need to know which attributes are performing good AND bad. The bad ones are a work in process, so don’t highlight those in your EVP. However, you shouldn’t be hiding the bad stuff, but work on those, to improve them in the future. All the attributes that are performing well, you should highlight in your EVP of course. That way, you’ll make an honest proposition. After all, what we don’t like, is a false promise.

4. Activate Internal & External EVP

To activate your EVP successfully, you’ll need a two-step activation. First of all, everyone currently working for your company should know what’s going on. If you’re too fast & skip this bit, you’ll be missing an essential part of the EVP activation. This is where a lot of companies go too fast on. Before you communicate it through your external channels, such as social media or career websites, you need to tell your people first. As long as you slowly build up the communication logically, you’ll be able to activate your EVP properly.

5. Your EVP Performance

To successfully activate the EVP that you crafted, you need to measure. Now, what better way to do this with all over again? To constantly know what’s going on, you need to measure constantly. Well, you can do that quarterly with the Employer Brand Index!